Van Rijn wrote: Not Jove. The Minotaur. Raw power and maleness.

  "I do not identify the reference," Adzel breathed in his ear.

  What that Shenn beast really is to her. She is only somewhat a slave. I have known many women like her in offices, spinsters fanatically devoted to a male boss. No wonder the SI gang were four women, two men. Men seldom think quite that way. Unless first they are conditioned, broken. I doubt if those people have had any sex relationship. The Latimer marriage was to prevent gossip. Their sexuality has been directed into the channel of serving the Shenna. Of course, they don't realize that.

  "My lords will now hear you," Thea Beldaniel said. For an instant, humanness broke through. She leaned forward and said, low and urgent, "Nicholas, be careful. I know your ways, and I'll translate what you mean, not what you say. But be careful what you mean, too. I won't lie to them. And they are more easily angered than you might think. I—" She paused a second. "I want you to go home unhurt. You are the, the only man who was ever kind to me."

  Bah, he wrote, I played Minotaur myself, once I saw she wished for something like that, though I supposed at the time that it was Jove. She responded, not conscious of what moved her. Not but what she doesn't deserve to be led back into her own species. That is a filthy thing they have done to her.

  Thea gestured. A robot responded. The view panned back, revealing a great conference chamber where four Shenna sat on cushions. Van Rijn winced and mumbled an oath when he saw the decor. "No taste, not by no standards nowhere in the universe or Hell! They skipped right past civilization, them, gone straight from barbarism to decadence." It was Adzel who, as the conference progressed and the focus of view shifted about, remarked on a few ancient-looking objects in that overcrowded room which were lovely.

  A voice rolled from one shaggy deep chest. Dwarfed and lost-looking, but her glance forever straying back to adore the Shenn called Moath, Thea interpreted: "You have come to speak of terms between your people and mine. What is the dispute?"

  "Why, nothings, really," van Rijn said, "except could be a few pieces of dirt we divvy up like friends instead of blowing our profit on squabbles. And maybe we got things we could trade, or teach each other, like how about one of us has a fine new vice?"

  Thea's translation was interrupted halfway through. A Shenn asked something at some length which she rendered as: "What is your alleged complaint against us?"

  She must have shaded her interpretation from that side also, but van Rijn and Adzel were both too taken aback to care. "Complaint?" the Wodenite nearly bleated. "Why, one scarcely knows where to begin."

  "I do, by damn," van Rijn said, and commenced.

  The argument erupted. Thea was soon white and shaking with nerves. Sweat plastered her hair to her brow. It would be useless to detail the wranglings. They were as confused and pointless as the worst in human history. But piece by piece, through sheer stubbornness and refusal to be outshouted, van Rijn assembled a pattern.

  Item: Serendipity had been organized to spy upon the Polesotechnic League and the whole Technic civilization.

  Answer: The Shenna had provided the League with a service it was too stupid to invent for itself. The forced sale of Serendipity was a bandit act for which the Shenna demanded compensation.

  Item: David Falkayn had been kidnapped and drugged by Shenn agents.

  Answer: One inferior organism was not worth discussing.

  Item: Humans had been enslaved, and probably other humans had been massacred, by Shenna.

  Answer: The humans were given a nobler life in service to a higher cause than could ever have been theirs otherwise. Ask them if this was not true.

  Item: The Shenna had tried to keep knowledge of a new planet from those who were entitled to it.

  Answer: The ones entitled were the Shenna. Let trespassers beware.

  Item: Despite their espionage, the Shenna did not seem to appreciate the strength of the Technic worlds and especially the League, which was not in the habit of tolerating menaces.

  Answer: Neither were the Shenna.

  —About that time, Thea collapsed. The being called Moath left his place and went to stoop over her. He looked, briefly, into the screen. His nostrils were dilated and his mane stood erect. He snorted a command. Transmission ended.

  It was probably just as well.

  Van Rijn woke so fast that he heard his own final snore. He sat up in bed. His stateroom was dark, murmurous with ventilation, a slight sugary odor in the air because no one had adjusted the chemosystem. The mechanical voice repeated, "Incoming signal received."

  "Pestilence and pustules! I heard you, I heard you, let me haul my poor tired old body aloft, by damn." The uncarpeted deck was cold under his feet. From a glowing clock face he saw he had been asleep for not quite six hours. Which made over twenty hours since the conference broke off. If you could dignify that slanging match by that name. What ailed those shooterbulls, anyhow? A high technological culture such as was needed to build robots and spaceships ought to imply certain qualities—a minimum level of diplomacy and caution and enlightened self-interest—because otherwise you would have wrecked yourself before you progressed that far. . . . Well, maybe communications had stayed off until now because the Shenna were collecting their tempers. . . . Van Rijn hurried down the corridor. His nightgown flapped around his ankles.

  The bridge was another humming emptiness. Taking its orders literally, the computer had stopped annunciating when it got a response. Adzel, his ears accustomed to denser air, was not roused in that short time. The machine continued as programmed by reporting, "Two hours ago, another spacecraft was detected in approach from the Circinus region. It is still assuming orbit but is evidently in contact with those already present—"

  "Shut up and put me on," van Rijn said. His gaze probed the stars. An eel-like destroyer, a more distant cruiser, a point of light that that could be the Shenn flagship, drifted across his view. No visible sign of the newcomer. But he did not doubt that was what had caused this summons.

  The viewscreen came on. Thea Beldaniel stood alone in the harsh-lit, machine-murmurous cavern of the conference chamber. He had never seen her so frantic. Her eyes were white-rimmed, her mouth was stretched out of shape.

  "Go!" Nor was her voice recognizable. "Escape! They're talking with Gahood. They haven't thought of ordering the robots to watch you. You can leave quietly—maybe—get a head start, or lose them in space—but they'll kill you if you stay!"

  He stood altogether unmoving. His deepened tone rolled around her. "Please to explain me more."

  "Gahood. He came . . . alone . . . Hugh Latimer's dead or—I sleep in my lord Moath's cabin by the door. An intercom call. Thellam asked him to come to the bridge, him and everyone. He said Gahood was back from Dathyna, Gahood who went to the giant star where the rogue is, and something happened so Gahood lost Latimer. They should meet, hear his full story, decide—" Her fingers made claws in the air. "I don't know any more, Nicholas. Moath gave me no command. I w-w-would not betray him . . . them . . . never . . . but what harm if you stay alive? I could hear the fury gather, feel it; I know them; whatever this is, they'll be enraged. They'll have the guns fire on you. Get away!"

  Still van Rijn had not stirred. He was quiet until some measure of control returned to her. She shuddered, her breath was uneven, but she regarded him half sanely. Then he asked, "Would they for sure kill Adzel and me? Hokay, they are mad and don't feel like more jaw-jaw right now. But would not sense be for them, they take us home? We got information. We got hostage value."

  "You don't understand. You'd never be freed. You might be tortured for your knowledge, you'd surely be drugged. And I would have to help them. And in the end, when you're no further use—"

  "They knock me on the head. Ja, ja, is clear. But I got a hard old noggle." Van Rijn leaned forward, resting his fingertips lightly on a chairback and his weight on them, catching her look and not letting go. "Thea, if we run, maybe we get away, maybe we don't. I think chances is not awesome good. Those destroyers, at least, I bet can outrun me, what is fat in the shanks. But if we go to Dathyna, well, maybe we can talk after your bosses cool down again. Maybe we strike a bargain yet. What they got to lose, anyhows, taking us along? Can you get them not to kill us, only capture us?"

  "I . . . well, I—"

  "Was good of you to warn me, Thea. I know what it cost you, I think. But you shouldn't get in trouble, neither, like you might if they find we skedoodled and guessed it was your fault. Why don't you go argue at your Moath? You remind him here we is and he better train guns on us and you better tell us we is prisoners and got to come to Dathyna. Think he does?"

  She could not speak further. She managed a spastic nod.

  "Hokay, run along." He blew her a kiss. The effect would have been more graceful if less noisy. The screen blanked. He stumped off to find a bottle and Adzel, in that order. But first he spent a few minutes with St. Dismas. If rage overrode prudence among the Shenna, despite the woman's pleas and arguments, he would not be long alive.

  XXI

  At full pseudospeed, from the nameless star to the sun of Dathyna took a bit under a week. The prisoner ship must strain to keep pace with the warcraft that surrounded her. But she succeeded, which told Earthman and Wodenite something about Shenn space capabilities.

  They gathered quite a few other facts en route. This did not include the contents of Gahood's message, nor the reason why it sent the team plunging immediately homeward. But their captors questioned them at irregular intervals, by hypercom. The interrogation was unsystematic and repetitive, seemingly carried out whenever some individual Shenn got the impulse, soon degenerating into boasts and threats. Van Rijn gave many truthful answers, because the aliens could generally have obtained them directly from Thea—population, productivity, etc., of the major Technic worlds; nature and activities of the Polesotechnic League; picturesque details about this or that life form, this or that culture—she was plainly distressed at the behavior of her lords, and tried to recast their words into something better organized. By playing along with her, van Rijn was able to draw her out. For example:

  "Lord Nimran wants to hear more about the early history of Earth," she told the merchant. Computers on either vessel converted between dot-dash transmission and voice. "He is especially interested in cases where one civilization inherited from another."

  "Like Greeks taking over from Minoans, or Western Christendom from Roman Empire, or Turks from Byzantines?" van Rijn asked. "Cases are not comparable. And was long ago. Why should he care?"

  He could imagine how she flushed. "It suffices that he does care."

  "Oh, I don't mind making lectures at him. Got nothings else to do except pour me another beer. Speaking about which—" Van Rijn leaned over and fumbled in the cooler that Adzel had carried to the bridge for him. "Ah, there you are, fishie."

  The computer turned this into hyperimpulses. The receiving computer was not equipped to translate, but its memory bank now included an Anglic vocabulary. Thea must have told Nimran that he had not properly replied. Did the Minotaur growl and drop hand to gun? Her plea was strained through the toneless artificial voice: "Do not provoke him. They are terrible when they grow angry."

  Van Rijn opened the bottle and poured into a tankard. "Ja, sure, sure. I only try for being helpful. But tell him I got to know where he wants his knowledge deepened before I can drill in the shaft. And why. I feel the impression that Shenn culture does not produce scientists what wants to know things from pure curiosity."

  "Humans overrate curiosity. A monkey trait."

  "Uh-huh, uh-huh. Every species got its own instincts, sometimes similar at some other race's but not necessary so. I try now to get the basic instinct pattern for your . . . owners . . . because elsewise what I tell them might not be what they want, might not make any sense to them whatsomever. Hokay, you tell me there is no real science on Dathyna. No interest in what isn't practical or edible or drinkable (Aaahhh!) or salable or useful in other ways I should not mention to a lady."

  "You oversimplify."

  "I know. Can't describe one single individual being in a few words, let alone a whole intelligent race. Sure. But speaking rough, have I right? Would you say this society is not one for abstracted science and odd little facts what aren't relevancy right away?"

  "Very well, agreed." There came a pause, during which Thea was probably calming Nimran down again.

  Von Rijn wiped foam off his nose and said, "I collect from this, is only one Shenn civilization?"

  "Yes, yes. I must finish talking to him." After a couple of minutes: "If you do not start answering, the consequences may be grave."

  "But I told you, sweetling, I'm not clear what is his question. He has not got a scientific curiosity, so he asks about successions of culture on Earth because might be is something useful to his own recent case on Dathyna. True?"

  After hesitation: "Yes."

  "All right, let us find out what kind of succession he is interested in. Does he mean how does a supplanter like Hindu appear, or a hybrid like Technic or Arabic, or a segue of one culture into another like Classical into Byzantine, or what?"

  No doubt forlornness crossed her eyes. "I don't know anything myself about Earth's history."

  "Ask him. Or better I should ask him through you."

  In this manner, von Rijn got confirmation of what he suspected. The Shenna had not created the magnificent cybernetic structure they used. They took it over from an earlier race, along with much else. Still more appeared to have been lost, for the Shenna were conquerors, exterminators, savages squatting in a house erected by civilized beings whom they had murdered. (How was this possible?)

  They were not less dangerous on that account, or because they were herbivorous. (What kind of evolution could produce warlike herbivores?)

  They had the wit to heed the recommendation of the Serendipity computer as regards the planet at Beta Crucis. They could see its industrial potential. But they were more concerned with denying this to others than with making intensive use of it themselves. For they were not traders or manufacturers on any significant scale. Their robots produced for them the basic goods and services they required, including construction and maintenance of the machinery itself. They had no desire for commercial or intellectual relations with Technic societies. Rather, they believed that coexistence was impossible. (Why?)

  The Serendipity operation typified them. When they first happened upon other races that traveled and colonized through space, out on the fringe of the existing Technic sphere, they proceeded to study these. Their methods were unspecified, and doubtless varied from place to place and time to time, but need not always have been violent. A Shenn could be cunning. Since no one can remember all the planets whose natives may go aroving, he need not admit he came from Outside, and he could ask many natural-sounding questions.

  Nevertheless, they could not secretly get the detailed information they wanted by such hit-and-run means. One brilliant male among them conceived the idea of establishing spies in the heart of the other territory: spies who could expect the eager cooperation of their victims. His fellows agreed to help start the enterprise. No Shenn had the patience to run that shop in Lunograd. But computers and dog-humans did.

  Even so, the basic program for the machines and doctrine for the people were drawn up by Shenna. And here the nature of the beast again revealed itself. When something important and urgent comes up, react aggressively—fast! Most species would have given an agency more caution, more flexibility. The Shenna could not endure to. Their instinct was such that to them, in any crisis, action was always preferable to wait-and-see. The pieces could be picked up later.

  The Shenna did have a rationale for their distrust of other spacegoing races. (Which distrust automatically produced murderous hatred in them.) They themselves were not many. Their outplanet colonies were few, small, and none too successful. Four-fifths of their adults must be counted out as significant help—because the females outnumbered the polygynous males by that fraction, and were dull-brained subservient creatures. Their political structure was so crude as to be ridiculous. Baronial patriarchs, operating huge estates like independent kingdoms, might confer or cooperate at need, on a strictly voluntary basis; and this constituted the state. Their economics was equally primitive. (How had a race like this gone beyond the Paleolithic, let alone destroyed another people who had covered the planet with machines and were reaching for the stars?)

  The companies of the League could buy and sell them for peanuts. The outward wave of Technic settlement would not necessarily sweep over them when it got that far—why bother?—but would certainly engulf every other desirable world around Dathyna. At best, with enormous effort, the Shenna might convert themselves into one more breed of spacefarers among hundreds. To natures like theirs, that prospect was intolerable.

  However their society was describable, they were not ridiculous themselves. On the contrary, they were as ominous as the plague bacillus when first it struck Europe. Or perhaps more so; Europe did survive.

  XXII

  The sun of Dathyna looked familiar to Adzel—middle F-type, 5.4 times as luminous as Sol, white more than gold—until he studied it with what instruments he had available. Astonished, he repeated his work, and got the same results. "That is not a normal star," he said.

  "About to go nova?" van Rijn asked hopefully.

  "No, not that deviant." Adzel magnified the view, stepping down the brilliance, until the screen showed a disc. The corona gleamed immense, a beautiful serene nacre; but it was background for the seething of flares and prominences, the dense mottling of spots. "Observe the level of output. Observe likewise the intricate patterns. They show a powerful but inconstant magnetic field. . . . Ah." A pinpoint of eye-hurting light flashed and died on the surface. "A nuclear explosion, taking place within the photosphere. Imagine what convection currents and plasma effects were required. Spectroscopy is consistent with visual data, as is radiation metering. Even at our present distance, the solar wind is powerful; and its pattern as we move inward is highly changeable." He regarded the scene with his rubbery lips pulled into a disconcerting smile. "I had heard of cases like this, but they are rare and I never thought I would have the good fortune to see one."